Many types of media content and other works exist that may not be accessible to certain persons. For purposes of this application, the terms “content”, “media”, and “work” are used largely interchangeably, and are used to describe that which may be inputted into the system described herein. Persons that may have difficulty in accessing a full range of content may be blind, have low vision, have learning or cognitive disabilities, mobility impairments, or may be deaf or hard of hearing. Alternatively, such persons may have little literacy in a given language, whether it is because it is a second language to them or because of other circumstances. In such a scenario, a system and methods for communicating content to such persons is needed. These persons shall be collectively termed “special needs persons” or a term similar to the same.
The desired output is dependent upon the particular need of the user. For example, a blind person may wish to be able to utilize text-to-speech (“TTS”) output, customized keyboard control, an output to a Braille display, or an output to a Braille embosser. A person with low vision may wish to have a display with greater contrast, and, accordingly, may benefit from a display that incorporates a contrast control to adjust the background/foreground colors, or that incorporates screen enlargement capabilities, text highlighting, etc.
Still others may find content more easily understood if features, such as highlighting and speech generation, are included, if the rate at which speech is aurally communicated is adjustable, and if dictionary, thesaurus, or other reference works features are included. Multimodal transmission of content, as well as an ability to repeat content, could assist individuals with learning disabilities.
Still other persons could be benefited with devices that accommodate mobility impairments. Such devices may include alternative pointing devices, voice recognition capabilities, user-definable keyboards, and on-screen virtual keyboard and word prediction. These devices would ideally be incorporated with media content in order to deliver such content to mobility-impaired persons.
Deaf and hard-of-hearing persons may benefit from the transmission of media through virtual sign language via a virtual reality avatar or human concatenated video. Text captioning may also prove to be helpful either in conjunction with the virtual sign language or in the alternative.
Still other persons may benefit from a system and methods that transmit media or other works via various outputs. For example, some persons may prefer the benefits of media that is transmitted in one or more of the forms disclosed above. Others, such as those who struggle with the English language, may find that a certain method of transmitting the media is helpful in learning the language. Furthermore, features such as an incorporated dictionary and thesaurus may prove helpful.
Accordingly, a demand exists for a system and methods which accept content from a variety of sources and through a variety of system, apparatuses, and methods and can process the content to provide modified content in a variety of formats to individuals with varying disabilities. The present invention satisfies the demand. Advantageously, the present invention can be used to communicate content to persons without disabilities.